- Published on
Free Will by Sam Harris
- Authors
- Name
- Ronald Luo, MSc
The Book in Two Sentences
- You feel that you are the author of your thoughts but are unaware of the unconscious actions that make up them. If you accept the uncomfortable reality that physical processes precede your thoughts and actions, how can you say that you are really free?
Free Will Summary
- Disclaimer: these are my notes from Free Will by Sam Harris. This summary may contain my own ideas, references to other resources, as well as passages from the book.
- You do not choose your genes or your environment: "Consider the biography of any 'self-made' man, and you will find that his success was entirely dependent on background conditions that he did not make and of which he was merely the beneficiary. There is not a person on earth who chose his genome, or the country of his birth, or the political and economic conditions that prevailed at moments crucial to his progress..."
- "You want to finish your work, but you are also inclined to stop working so that you can play with your kids. You aspire to quit smoking, but you also crave another cigarette. You are struggling to save money, but you are also tempted to buy a new computer. Where is the freedom when one of these opposing desires inexplicably triumphs over its rival?"
- "Imagine what it would be like to see the time log of these mental events, alongside video of your associated behavior, demonstrating that the experimenters knew what you would think and do just before you did. You would, of course, continue to feel free in every present moment, but the fact that someone else could report what you were about to think and do would expose this feeling for what it is: an illusion."
- "We can be very poor witnesses to experience itself. By merely glancing at your face or listening to your tone of voice, others are often more aware of your state of mind and motivations than you are."
- Mindfulness reveals a sinister backdrop: "The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness—rather, it appears in consciousness, as does any thought or impulse that might oppose it."
- Neurons, physiological processes, and brain states are all beholden to the laws of physics. If we are the mere byproducts of our environment, how can we say that we are free? "There is no question that (most, if not all) mental events are the product of physical events. The brain is a physical system, entirely beholden to the laws of nature—and there is every reason to believe that changes in its functional state and material structure entirely dictate our thoughts and actions..."
- "How can we be 'free' as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t. "
- It is an illusion to say that we could have acted differently in a given moment: "And there is no way I can influence my desires—for what tools of influence would I use? Other desires? To say that I would have done otherwise had I wanted to is simply to say that I would have lived in a different universe had I been in a different universe"
- If we accept that we are not free, what does that say about our current criminal justice system? "No human being is responsible for his genes or his upbringing, yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character. Our system of justice should reflect an understanding that any of us could have been dealt a very different hand in life."
- "Assuming that violent criminals have such freedom, we reflexively blame them for their actions. But without it, the place for our blame suddenly vanishes, and even the most terrifying sociopaths begin to seem like victims themselves. The moment we catch sight of the stream of causes that precede their conscious decisions, reaching back into childhood and beyond, their culpability begins to disappear..."
- "We are deeply disposed to perceive people as the authors of their actions, to hold them responsible for the wrongs they do us, and to feel that these transgressions must be punished. Often, the only punishment that seems appropriate is for the perpetrator of a crime to suffer or forfeit his life. It remains to be seen how a scientifically informed system of justice might steward these impulses..."
- "We fight emerging epidemics—and even the occasional wild animal—without attributing free will to them. Clearly, we can respond intelligently to the threat posed by dangerous people without lying to ourselves about the ultimate origins of human behavior."
- Losing a personal believe in free will need not make you nihilistic: " Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible..."
- "Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have."
👋 Thanks for making it to the end!